On the ground

Although Russia’s intervention has been critical in altering the course of Syria’s civil war since September 2015, Kurdish troops and their allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have played a major part in the retreat of ISIS. The announcement in early July that the United States was ending aid to opposition militias has underlined a fact that has been increasingly significant since the battle for Kobane in 2014: the West’s bombing of ISIS will only succeed with ground support, and only the SDF can provide it.

Russian air support and foreign militias (such as Lebanese Hizbullah and Iranian and Iraqi groups) have enabled the Syrian regime to consolidate its control of the country’s western fringe where most of the population lives. The Syrian opposition has lost most of its urban strongholds apart from Idlib, where Jabha Fatah al-Sham (former Al-Nusra Front), is competing for control of the province with another Salafist group, Ahrar al-Sham. And between the two are the marginalised remnants of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

From their hideouts in the north and west, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which have blended into the SDF, have meanwhile gradually reclaimed a sizeable portion of the eastern bank of the Euphrates. Apart from a brief (successful) episode in Al-Hasakah, they have pursued their own course rather than confronting the Assad government forces directly. Turkey, which fears a lasting Syrian Kurdistan being established if the canton of Afrin is united with the two eastern cantons, became directly involved in August 2016 when it sent reinforcements to the FSA on the pretext of joining the battle for Raqqa. But it took the Turkish army three months to win control of Al-Bab, a small town held by ISIS. After the fall of East Aleppo, troops loyal to President Assad cut the road south, ending Turkish ambitions for a significant role.

The Syrian Kurds, though absent from talks in Astana and Geneva, have managed to establish contact with the major powers, particularly through Rojava’s representation in major capitals, including Paris, Berlin, Washington and Moscow. Russia, while handling Turkey carefully, is indirectly protecting the status quo in Afrin and allowing fighters free passage. Much to the Turks’ displeasure, the West’s support for the SDF is increasingly overt, not just with air support but also with sophisticated weaponry and special forces, from France, the UK and especially the US. The complex network of combatants in the field has been simplified over the past two years, at the expense of the armed opposition and jihadists, but the challenge of integrating the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria in any lasting way is no closer to a solution.